1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the manufacture of ceramic dental appliances such as crowns and bridges. The invention herein is related more particularly to the milling of zirconia blanks into such appliances where the blanks are fabricated by a vacuum and pressure assisted slip-casting method to achieve superior physical properties.
2. Background Art
Dental prosthetic devices or appliances must satisfy a number of different criteria. They need to have excellent physical properties (Flexural Strength to 1600 MPa) to resist wear and mechanical deformation for very long periods of time. They should also provide good aesthetic characteristics which means that they have a natural appearance in color, texture and shape so that they are not readily distinguishable from the original natural teeth. They should also be readily fabricated at reasonable cost which means that the cost of materials used and the time required in their manufacture, should be within reasonable limits.
Dental appliances made of zirconia can meet these criteria. It is a ceramic material which can be made to be extremely hard and fracture resistant. Applicant has discovered that if provided in pre-fabricated pre-sintered blanks, they can be readily machined in CAD/CAM systems and then sintered with highly predictable shrinkage to conform to virtually any desired dental appliance shape with high yield and minimal manual intervention. A key aspect of the aesthetic appearance of zirconia dental appliances would be achieved if it were possible to provide such prosthetic devices with a substantial degree of light transmissivity. Translucent appliances would exhibit the color of the underlying natural dental material and thus go a long way toward achieving a highly desirable appearance, i.e., that is matched to the color of adjacent natural teeth. Thus, if it were possible to provide pre-fabricated, pre-sintered zirconia blanks and yet still retain the advantageous mechanical and easy fabrication properties of the ceramic, that would be a significant accomplishment in the art of dental appliances. Even though Applicant is not the first to consider slip-casting zirconia for the dental appliance art (see U.S. Pat. No. 4,772,436 to Tyszblat or U.S. Pat. No. 5,975,905 to Kim et al), there is no known relevant prior art which discloses all of the process steps of the present invention for fabricating a pre-sintered zirconia blank for the dental appliance arts. Moreover, Tyszblat teaches the interlacing of fitted metal oxide particles in the solid phase and glass. Kim et al discloses the creation of a ceramic sheet of thickness 0.1 mm to 1.0 mm and then coating the sheet onto a gypsum mold under heat and pressure and then, after sintering, coating the resultant body with glass powder. No other known partially stabilized zirconia material can be made to reach a stiffness of 1600 MPa mark when slip cast. No other known partially stabilized zirconia material reaches the high degree of light transmission in the 500-800 nm wavelength, which is needed to transmit the warm colors of the mouth. The partially stabilized zirconia is normally very hard to slip cast with a high density of 6.03 g/cc. Aluminum oxide for example is readily slip cast because of its lower density 3.98 g/cc. Any ceramic with density between 2.0 and 4.0 g/cc is more readily made by a slip cast process. This is because the lower density allows the particulate to stay dispersed longer which results in better green density and strength after final sintering. When densities rise above 4 g/cc, high strength is never reached in colloidal processing. Very high density materials normally cannot be cast at all, such as tungsten carbide at 14.6 g/cc.